


reputation

by starting with a story (SongofThunder)



Series: and the day goes on, and on, and on [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Second person POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 06:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16131341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongofThunder/pseuds/starting%20with%20a%20story
Summary: “A reputation takes years to build, and only a second to tear down.”But that’s not true, is it?





	reputation

“A reputation takes years to build, and only a second to tear down.”

But that’s not true, is it?

After all, you’ve been trying to tear yours down for years now. Four. Six. Ever since you learned it had been growing.

You  _ wanted _ to be forgettable. You  _ wanted _ to be that one girl who no one remembers the name of. That one girl who nobody cares about. Who everyone left alone.

Because maybe then you’d get peace and quiet. Maybe then the friends you would have made would have cared enough to see through you. They would have been few, and they would have been close.

And it worked, for a time. In second and third grade everyone let you be.

In fourth grade you finally made the close friends that you coveted. You cared about them, and they cared about you.

In fourth grade you were so sure that life was figured out. That your reputation was solid. That you had friends to last a lifetime.

That wasn’t true.

In fifth grade people began getting braver. They began to push and pull at each other.

You hated it. You pushed them away. You didn’t want them near you.

People always want something they can’t have, don’t they?

In sixth grade your friends were torn away from you. All of them. And you’d never again have friends that close.

And it made you bitter. Why wouldn’t it? You had friends, and then you didn’t. And everyone who talked to you was constantly pushing you. Constantly cheating, constantly teasing, constantly being insensitive.

It was torture.

“Just ignore them,” they said. “They’ll go away.”

_ Lie, _ you thought.  _ Lie, lie, lie, LIE. _

Because they never went away. You put up with it for months and they  _ never went away. _

You lashed out. Maybe if you told them to stop, maybe if you hit or kicked them away when they were too close, maybe they’d see you as dangerous and leave-

_ THEY DIDN’T LEAVE. _

They crowded more. They took you and they ground you into a pulp just to see you cry.

It was funny, to them.

“Boys will be boys.” You’d never hated a phrase so much in your entire life.

You hit, you screamed, you pleaded, you tore. No one came.

You never had peace and quiet again.

You were in the principal’s office so many times you couldn’t count. And each time you lied, saying you’d learned your lesson.

But what lesson was to be learned? If they were being unfair they deserved it. They deserved the black eyes. The scars. They deserved it all. For three years your only desire was to see them all razed to the ground. Tortured just as you had been.

That never happened. You had to hold back, because even though you feared for your sanity, you feared for your future more. You had to let them get away with only a slap on the wrist. When you hit, it wasn’t as hard as you could have done. Never more than a pinch or a bruise.

And there sprang your reputation. The little weakling with  _ anger management. _ That was who you were.

And that is who you are.

Even in your freshman year, three years later.

“A reputation takes years to build, and only a second to tear down.”

But that’s not true, is it?


End file.
